Alone Again
by Slayzer
Summary: -Set four years before XIII-2- Hope comes home to an empty house and thinks about the holes in this life and whether or not Lightning is worth it. Dose he give up on his lost friends or go on believing that one day they'll meet again? (It's a short one shot but I do rant on a bit at the start so forgive me. I just saw the 'Lightning Returns' trailer and I'm disappointed)


Square Enix owns it all.

I give up. This is the low point and I given up all things FFXIII.

Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Returns, are you freaking kidding me here!? I don't know if any of you played Crisis Core or Dirge of Cerberus but they sucked, and don't tell me they don't suck. Both as action games and as Final Fantasy games they were just horrible.

This into has tuned into a rant but I've lost much of my faith in the comply after buying FFXIII-2. Still it might be worth ten bucks to watch Lightning run around and pretend that she not in a Devil May Cry ripoff.

So here's Hope channeling my feeling for not being able to give up on Lightning.

Alone Again.

By Slayzer.

Hope came home to an empty house.

It wasn't simply that his wife was gone but that she took everything of value with her. Marks on the walls and carpet were the only things that showed the places where furniture had once been. There wasn't even a goodbye letter not that there need to be one. Hope knew why she left.

Hope leaned against one of the bare walls and slide down to the floor. He was alone again, with nothing but his work at the academy. His all consuming work to find his lost friends.

To find Light.

Hope reached into his Academy coat and pulled out a pack of cigarets he had there and lite on up. Smoking helped him relax but his wife, well his Ex-wife now, had forbidden it in the house.

He thought about the short courtship that lead to his marriage. Serah had just disappeared and Hope's dad passed away later next year. With nothing else to ground Hope threw himself into his work at the expense of friends and all other distractions of life.

That was when he met her.

It was lust at first sight and desperate of anything feeling like love he dove head first into it. Their marriage was just an endless list of compromises he made for her but it wasn't enough. Early mornings and late nights ruled much of Hope's life and she couldn't understand why. Just what was keeping her husband from her everyday? Why did if feel like he was never here for her?

It was because Hope wasn't here. He was trying to get out there, wherever that there that his friends had disappeared off to. Even now taking a drag on a cigaret Hope couldn't bring himself to care that she left. In the end it just meant he had more time to work on what was important.

Hope could never explain it anyone but somehow he felt like all his friends were still out there fighting and he had to fight for them too. It was his job to fight for the world that they would come home to.

The world that Lightning would come home to.

Hope got up and crushed the used cigaret butt out on the floor. He didn't care because he'd sell the damn house in the morning. Right now he was going to check into a hotel and see about renting an apartment.

Lightning had taught Hope to never give up and he couldn't give on her. No matter how hard it was or how much of a long shot it was, Hope would fight on for her.

-end-

In FFXIII-2 I tried to image what Hope's life was like those Ten years on his own. My guess was lonely but did he ever try and build a life for himself. I picture him having a failed marriage because of his work to save Lightning. I think unrequited love has a shelf life were you either do something about it or you move on.

As for why Hope's wife is unnamed was because she didn't need one. She was just to show the void in Hope's life that he can't fill and what that cost is.

As for my rant of an into I'm sorry but I'm just disgusted with all this now. If Square Enix doesn't respect their flagship series enough to make quality storytelling, something that has been the pillar of Final Fantasy for decades, then I'm done with it.

It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't a poor attempt to grab money because FFXIV bombed. That's all that these sequels have been to me, expedience in the name of greed and at the cost of quality.

This hasn't really been much of a fanfic but more of a catharsis for me. when I think about FFXIII now I just get sad or angry and those are not the most constructive feelings for writing.


End file.
